Book Description

Excerpt from History of British Animals: Exhibiting the Descriptive Characters and Systematical Arrangement of the Genera and Species of Quadupeds Birds, Reptiles, Fishes, Mollusca, and Radiata of the United Kingdom; Including the Indigenous, Extirpated, and Extinct Kinds, Together With Perodica The study of British Zoology is peculiarly attractive to the intelligent observer of nature in this country, by the facility with which many species, in the different groups of animals, can be procured for accurate examination. Their forms, structure, and successive developement, can be traced in detail, together with the functions which they exercise, and the various circumstances by which they are controlled. In this manner just conceptions of the laws of organization, and the limits to the distribution of the species, may be acquired, and the, mind qualified for speculating on the more extended relations of the animal kingdom. A valuable collection of facts will likewise be secured, by which the most fascinating generalisations may be tested - those productions which, like a map, should always be received with suspicion, if inaccurate within the sphere of individual observation. These views have long exercised an influence in this country, and given rise to those various attempts to enumerate and describe British animals, which, for more than a century, have been presented in succession to the public. During this extended interval, the science of zoology has experienced several remarkable changes, each producing a corresponding effect on the British Fauna. If anatomy and physiology be regarded as the basis of zoological science, the history of species will include a description of their structure and functions, along with their external characters. If anatomy and physiology be discarded as foreign to the subject, and the professed naturalist acknowledge, without a blush, his ignorance or his contempt of both, then the history of species will be chiefly occupied with the details of external appearance. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.